Question

what is the role of heuristics in perception?

(please give around a paragraph explanation that is breif and simple to follow)

Answer 1

Decisions are hard to make. Everybody at some point has to make decisions, be it small or big. Heuristics play a very important role in perception as they are mental rules of thumb that permit us to make decisions and judgements in an efficient manner. They are shortcuts to making decisions. There are three types of heuristics; availability heuristics, representative heuristics and anchoring and adjustment.

Availability heuristics, the most easily available examples that come to your mind which is responsible for your judgment and decision making. For instance, you are given a list of names with equal number of male and female names. You glance through and after a bit you are asked, if the number of male names are more than female, you respond to it by saying, yes. The reason why you arrive at this decision is because the female names in list were more famous and reminded you of the famous celebrities. Heuristics are mental short cuts that help you arrive at a decision based on the readily examples brought to your mind, however, they are not always accurate.